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Bolivian Chompas, Barbie Dolls & Evo Morales
Another South American country that favors the word “chompa” is Bolivia, whose populist president, Evo Morales, is a big-time chompa-wearer. In 2006, artisans in Mexico came out with a line of hand-knitted pullovers and skirts for Barbie dolls, styled after the striped sweaters worn by Morales during his presidential campaign: The doll outfits were woven from ultra-soft alpaca wool and retailed for about 1,000 Mexican pesos each. (Click here to read in Spanish about “el look de Evo” and Mattel’s Barbie.)
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A Favorite Word in Peruvian Spanish: “Chompa”
(la) Chompa (CHOM-pah): If you analyze it, the English word “sweater” is an ugly term for something that’s usually quite nice. The word sounds sweaty, a bad association to have with something warm and fuzzy that you wear next to your skin and typically don’t wash that often. Worse, the word also can refer to a person who sweats a lot (“Yep, my firstborn never did keep his covers on at night. Always was a sweater.”). Isn’t there a word in another language that expresses the nice-wooly-pullover concept better? Enter the Latin American “chompa,” which translates as “pullover sweater” but is more fun to say. To my ear, “chompa” has…
